. >> richard engel, you are so capable of covering this, more than almost anybody, it makes me worry about the prospect of covering these things close up. but more than anything, i'm grateful you're back. >> thanks. >> now you have to stay here and become a dentist, a doctor. all right, that will do it for us tonight. let's play hardball. >>> good evening. i'm michael summer connish in for chris matthews. president obama calls for congress to act on a scaled down deal that would spare the middle class on tax hikes from the first of the year. he spoke with john boehner tonight but is grand bargain still possible when everybody is leaving town. then in the weeks since the shooting massacre in a town that left hand 20 children and six educators dead, we've been hearing for plenty calling for new gun control laws but little from the nra until now. in a bizarre meeting, the head of the nra said the solution to gun vie lerchs in this country is simple. more guns. armed officers, in fact, in every school. it's the same line we've heard from nra, but has the country's relationship with guns